Humiliation Freezing You

[Upside Down Eagle]

I've been battling the feeling of humiliation that my parents battered into me. My mind has been dragging up images of being humiliated all the time this winter. I feel it when I take my clothes off. I feel it when I go to the toilet, when I take shower. When I hear certain sounds. When clothes touch against parts of my body.

Especially the triggers make me scream like a freaking three year old, all dramatic. It makes me want to off myself. It makes me want to batter the surface of my body so bad I can't feel anything but pain anymore, because feeling pain is better than feeling utterly humiliated.

The feeling of humiliation is crippling and I feel like it holds me back. I feel like it freezes me in this emotion where I have the mental maturity of a three year old, I kick and scream and I'm getting thrown out of my house yet again for acting this way. I need to snap out of it but I don't know how.

It makes me want to run and dissapear. It makes me want to explode like a balloon, with a pang, and stop existing like that. Was that the intention of my abusers? What is the deepest intention of somebody who intentionally humiliates another human being? Were they mad at me for existing?

I don't know how to grow up. I don't know how to stop being this humiliated infant.

Any of you have had a similar feeling? How did you deal with it?

Thanks :-)

 

[ms spock]

I've been battling the feeling of humiliation that my parents battered into me.

It makes me want to off myself.

The feeling of humiliation is crippling and I feel like it holds me back.

I don't know how to grow up. I don't know how to stop being this humiliated infant.

I do have similar feelings and it is difficult, hard and challenging to deal with.

The humiliation runs deep with me and I am not happy about it.

It does bring up suicidal ideation for me as well.

I have no idea what your abusers/parents intended. It probably had absolutely nothing to do with you. It was about their own dysfunction. But of course it is not easy to accept that on an emotional level.

 

[EvenStrongerNow]

(((Radise))), I experience this from time to time as well. It used to be way more often. The only thing I can tell you from my experience is that it was a process. Over time and with processing, the feelings of humiliation dissipated. Also, when I was strong enough emotionally, presenting myself with the facts helped eradicate a lot of that.

I'm sorry you are going through this. I feel you. I really do.

 

[Ghostybear73]

I think your abusers were probably in their own selfish world. Just know that you were not at fault and I hope that you keep fighting so that you can see the occasional good in people.

 

[ill]

More often than not, I think people who behave abusively do so because they haven't learned how to manage their stresses, their impulses and/or their feelings and they lash out at others in order to alleviate their suffering.

For myself, it's more shame and guilt than humiliation. I have to actively work through my shame and my guilt all the time. I have to remind myself almost endlessly that this moment is not like those moments when I was a child, I have to remind myself that every person I meet is not like my abusers, that I am not powerless the way I was as a child. I have to constantly work through my shit. The only way up/out is through. There's no way to skip from being a battered child to a happy, well-adjusted adult except by constant work. It sucks, but then it sucks less and eventually even less.

Do you have any coping strategies in play for when you start to feel humiliated and revert to a childlike state? I'm thinking of people I know who use things like a stone or lighter as a sort of talisman to ground and remind them that this moment is not the one that passed. Do you think you might be able to learn to substitute one coping mechanism for another - i.e. pinching yourself instead of punching yourself (referencing your other thread), or going for a walk/punching a pillow/screaming into a pillow instead of kicking and screaming? If it is a family member you're currently living with, do you think you could talk to them about how you two can manage to live together in a way that works for both of you - what boundaries you each need, what they might be able to do to support you when you feel humiliated and revert, etc?

When it comes right down to it, no matter how much we wish to or actually do understand about why our abusers abused us, the answer will never be good enough. No answer can undo what's been done. The damage is still there and we have to work through it.

 

[Upside Down Eagle]

I have long thought that I had already become a more-or-less-adjusted adult. I had tantrums, and panic attacks, but nothing much like this winter has been. I figure I had all this shit built up inside of me and apparently now is the time to work through it.

I rent a place, and I've already signed a contract agreeing to leave within the next two months. The landlords live next door and they can hear me scream, they also heard me venting (physically) on some furniture back in september when I was going through my rage-stage. They've been very willing to cooperate with me thus far, but I find myself unable to stop myself from screaming at times.

I have stayed with family for a while, I didn't scream over there (when people live in the same house as I, and I am their guest, then I find I'm more capable of just holding back). But I got into fights with them anyway, because of the same "traumatized-child" behavior. Sometimes I think like a toddler rather than an adult and that's hard for anyone to handle. Including myself.

I'm thinking of people I know who use things like a stone or lighter as a sort of talisman to ground and remind them that this moment is not the one that passed.

I do have some stones that I can hold! And I try to focus on "now" and not fall into the trap of my own mind. The thing of the humiliation feeling is that it is so tempting... when I feel it I tend to immediately go into the defense and become enraged. Enraged at the feeling of powerlesness and through this moment try to claim some power over it... somehow have the illusion that I can still force it to change :(

I have to remind myself almost endlessly that this moment is not like those moments when I was a child, I have to remind myself that every person I meet is not like my abusers, that I am not powerless the way I was as a child.

It's exhausting, right? I think becoming enraged is also a way of escaping this reality. I've hated people for a long time and always blamed in on them (materialistic, superficial culture and what not) but I realize now it's me. Feeling humiliated and running away allows me to never really be in their world. Provides me an half-assed justification to hide and snarl. I'm not sure I really want to be in their world. Who would I be if I left the past behind...?

 

[ms spock]

Enraged at the feeling of powerlesness and through this moment try to claim some power over it... somehow have the illusion that I can still force it to change :(

I have this too.

Who would I be if I left the past behind...?

A Very Good Question.

 

[ms spock]

For myself, it's more shame and guilt than humiliation. I have to actively work through my shame and my guilt all the time. I have to remind myself almost endlessly that this moment is not like those moments when I was a child, I have to remind myself that every person I meet is not like my abusers, that I am not powerless the way I was as a child. I have to constantly work through my shit. The only way up/out is through. There's no way to skip from being a battered child to a happy, well-adjusted adult except by constant work. It sucks, but then it sucks less and eventually even less.

I hopefully I will get there too.

 

[Hashi]

Who would I be if I left the past behind...?

Who will you be if you don't?

 

[Hashi]

I'm not meaning to be dismissive or minimising. I have the same question for myself. I just think that anything has to be better than this.

 

[ms spock]

I just think that anything has to be better than this.

Today is one of those days for me Hashi.

 

[Upside Down Eagle]

Who will you be if you don't?

An even better question. You're right, anything has to be better than this. That's why I'll just be forcing myself back into reality again today... even though all I want to do is just stay in bed and sleep until this is over. But it won't be over ever unless I decide to take active steps out of it...